John Carmack leaves id Software for a full time role at Oculus Rift

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software and technical mastermind behind the games that defined the FPS genre has left id Software.

Carmack was the only remaining founder left at the company when it was acquired by Bethesda in 2009 recently took up a secondary role as the chief technical officer of VR start-up Oculus Rift.

At the time Bethesda explained that his duties at Oculus would not interfere with his duties at id. Carmack now moves on to work full time with Oculus Rift on their promising VR headset.

Carmack originally founded id Software back in 1991 with John Romero, Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack and they would go on to revolutionise the games industry with DOOM and then Quake kindling the now-perpetual obsession with FPS gaming.

Current studio director at id Software Tim Willits said, "John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio. John's work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id's tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well."

John Carmack gave his own brief explanation for his departure on Twitter saying, "I wanted to remain a technical adviser for id, but it just didn't work out. Probably for the best, as the divided focus was challenging."